New home sales in the GTA fell 25% last month
By Lucas on Sep 24, 2015
The building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) released its new home market figures for August 2015, announcing a large decrease in sales across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Sales weren’t the only thing to drop - inventories are also falling. The supply of new low-rise homes in the GTA fell to a new record low of 4,298 units, according to RealNet Canada, BILD’s trusted source for new home market intelligence. The supply of high-rise units also fell slightly to 23,057 units.
"Demand for new homes is outpacing supply across the GTA," says BILD president and CEO Bryan Tuckey. "Constrained supply of serviced, developable land has significantly limited inventory of new homes, and you can't sell what you don't have. There were a number of new project launches in the first half of 2015, but most of the homes were purchased shortly after they came on the market. Traditionally there are fewer new launches in August, and it also impacts sales."
New low-rise sales dropped 25% compared to August 2014 with only 869 sales last month. High-rise sales also decreased about 24% compared to last year with only 1,001 sales. Peel was the only region across the GTA to see a slight increase in sales, seeing 448 total sales this year compared to last year’s total of 414. Though sales saw a huge drop in August, the year-to-date total of 27,416 is still 13% higher than the 10-year average.
The RealNet New Home Price Index went down for the average price of new low-rise homes for the first time in 19 months. Prices averaged $800,099 compared to July’s average of $806,395. Even though the average price went down compared to July, the average price is still 16% higher than the same period last year. The average price for a new high-rise unit came in at $450,837, slightly above July’s average of $446,398. The price of high-rise units has remained stable over the last year, rising about 1%.
Will the high number of September and October releases bring balance back to the GTA’s new home market?
